Friday, May 16, 2014

Innocence

Slowly, I've been trying to get into the video 21st century. I've finally got a Blu-ray video player (Oppo BDP-103), just wired it to our TV and audio system. The only video I could find at home to test it was a DVD of the backcountry ski movie Sanctified. Its opening with words by Bob Athey struck me with surprising force for its old-school feel, even though it's only nine years old. The late Doug Coombs makes an appearance, and much of the words are for keeping the slopes wild, interspersed with the inevitable perfect backcountry powder runs. Maybe it's my frustratingly slow recovery from the return of my twisted lower back after unprecedented (for me) skiing 29 days out of 80 in four countries, three continents, mostly with no or just partial lift help, maybe it is the sadness of missing the usually glorious spring skiing of the Sierra and the Cascades because of my bad back and of the exceptionally dry winter, or maybe it's just nostalgia for the innocent silliness of the defunct TelemarkTips bboard, but this movie makes it all seem simpler, less ambiguous, and makes me long for those days when I had become just got good enough on skis to become totally besotted with the mountains and the sport, and managed to enjoy places and conditions that I'd not even bother to consider today.

I want to go skiing, but I have no idea when my back will let me.